PRESS RELEASE – Waltham Forest Lib Dems slam Labour’s ‘APPRENTICE-STYLE BOARDROOM’

The total cost of the new refurbishments at Waltham Forest Town Hall has been uncovered by Lib Dem councillor for  Cann Hall ward Liz Phillips. According to a written answer to Councillor Phillips, the cost of the new Town Hall reception area and what has been dubbed ‘The Boardroom’ by the council now totals £610,000.

Councillor Liz Phillips said:

“Whilst there was clearly some need for private meeting spaces for residents, these costs seem exorbitant to me.”

“This new boardroom looks like no more than a vanity project so Labour Cabinet members can sit there and pretend to be Alan Sugar.

“Labour claim that some of the costs will be paid for through renting it out but no doubt it will be Waltham Forest residents who pick up the lion’s share of the bill.

“Labour Cabinet members should reflect on whether that money could have been better spent on our young people, for example on ensuring that the council finally meet their apprenticeship targets for this Borough or keeping open Harrow Green library.”

PRESS RELEASE – Waltham Forest Labour are letting our schools down

Councillor Liz Phillips has raised concerns about Waltham Forest council’s contractor Babcock after it was revealed that almost 15% of the Borough’s schools are now in special measures following their two years as the council’s contractor.

In a written answer to Cllr Phillips, the Labour Cabinet member, Cllr Clare Coghill described the council’s risk analysis programme for schools as ‘a work in progress’ and said that the council’s priority had been ‘savings of £2m from the contract at an early opportunity’.

Councillor Liz Phillips, Waltham Forest Lib Dem spokesperson for Children and Member of the Council’s Corporate Parenting Board, said:

“Almost 15% of our schools are now in special measures and yet the council won’t be seeking any compensation from the contractor who presided over this mess.”

“Surely there should be something in our contract with this company that means at the very least they must pay for failing local kids and their parents?”

 “In Waltham Forest we are now on our 4th Labour cabinet member for Children’s Services in just over two years. Perhaps if someone with a bit of experience would take responsibility for more than a few months then we wouldn’t be in this situation?”

RESIDENTS DELIVER IVE FARM PETITION TO THE MAYOR

Bob Sullivan with local residents at Ive Farm talking to a Guardian reporter

 

Last week Leyton ward Councillor Bob Sullivan arranged for residents to present their petition to the Mayor.

The Council is still negotiating turning Ive Farm Playing Field, in Leyton,  which they have left derelict, into a campsite for the Olympics.

Oliver Close, Villiers Close and Ive Farm Close residents whose homes back onto the site have objections and organised a protest on the field.

Leyton Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan said:

“It’s now less than two months until the Olympics and the council still can’t give us a decision. This will cause untold disruption if it is allowed to happen and the council need to think again.

“I’m pleased that residents were able to deliver this petition to the Mayor. The council must now take this issue seriously and listen to residents’ concerns about posting a campsite at Ive Farm in a heavily residential area.”

 

 

 

Cllr Bob Sullivan joins residents’ protests over Ive Farm Playing Field

Councillor Bob Sullivan (foreground left) with concerned residents

The Council is negotiating turning Ive Farm Playing Field, which they have left derelict, into a campsite for the Olympics.

Oliver Close, Villiers Close and Ive Farm Close residents whose homes back onto the site have objections and organised a protest on the field.Leyton Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan said: “The council is becoming like a secret society. Council officers can’t even tell me what the plans are – the Guardian is the only way of finding out what’s happening.”

Leyton Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan said:

“The Council is becoming like a secret society. Council officers can’t even tell me what the plans are – the local Guardian is the only way of finding out what’s happening.”

Lib Dem Victory in Town Hall Parking Campaign

Councillor Hussain at the start of the campaign

With the help of residents, local Liberal Democrats campaigned hard against the new charges believing they would be a ‘tax on democracy’.

Now, following pressure from both Lib Dem Group Leader Councillor Bob Sullivan and Councillor Mahmood Hussain, the council has u-turned and will only be implementing the new charges between 08.30 am and 5 pm, Monday – Friday, starting from 1st June 2012.

Councillor Mahmood Hussain said:

“I am pleased that the council has responded to our campaign and scrapped these unnecessary charges. This is great news for our residents who now will not have to pay to participate in our local democracy

“This decision should ensure that council meetings stay transparent and accessible to local residents.”

2012 Council Budget – a missed opportunity!

Budget Speech by Cllr. Bob Sullivan – Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Waltham Forest

 

Liberal Democrat alternative budget putting millions into jobs and businesses and Children’s Services and re-opening Harrow Green Library

 

Mr Mayor, I’d like to start by thanking our officers and finance department for helping us to produce a budget that is legal and addresses the financial problems that the borough faces.

As I said last year, we did not support the front-loading of local government budget cuts and at that time fellow Lib Dems and I wrote to the Minister to oppose this because of its potential impact on services.

But thanks to the Legacy of debt left by the previous Labour government, we are where we are. Recent statements by Labour’s ‘two Eds’ make it clear that none of the three main parties are proposing to reverse any of the spending cuts to local government or elsewhere.

Despite this I don’t doubt that the Waltham Forest Labour Party will continue to blame the Coalition for every painful choice that has had to be made this year. But just a short glance at their budget, which I hope every cabinet member has now done since they managed to approve the wrong fees and charges before Christmas, will show you that despite the cuts Labour are storing up money and ignoring the needs of local residents.

In contrast we’ve identified savings and reserves that could help residents now, investing in jobs and growth and softening the cuts to our Children’s services.

We support the government’s offer of a 2 and a half percent grant to freeze our council tax, which has given the council flexibility this year including an additional reserve fund as we had already planned for a council tax freeze.

Two years into this coalition government and we can now see how Liberal Democrat influence has helped Waltham Forest where we need it most:

Despite the administartion being in denial, the facts are as follows:

  • The Lib Dems’ pupil premium has delivered 4.8 million pounds to help 10,000 pupils from low-income families in Waltham Forest.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have delivered 25 million pounds this year to help with Waltham Forests growing school population. The second highest allocation in the country.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have improved childcare for disadvantaged two year olds, helping an estimated 1000 struggling Waltham Forest families with funding for 15 hours free childcare a week.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have given new powers to councils allowing Waltham Forest to scrap its second homes discount, which could potentially save us 149,000 pounds a year.

  • Lib Dem Ministers introduced the winter support fund to give an extra 635,000 pounds to help with preventative adult social care over the winter months.

  • And Lib Dem minister Vince Cables initiative has created 1,500 apprenticeships for Waltham Forest.

Moving on to our budget savings –

Firstly, we’ve proposed savings in the tax payer subsidy to the trade unions. I see the Tories have woken up to this as well. Last year we proposed a 25% cut in line with cuts to the rest of the authority. Since Labour took no action on this we are now proposing a 50% cut to help protect vital frontline services.

We would expect this to be cut completely in future years as the unions should ultimately be using their own funds to support their members, not simply because it is fairer to our council tax payers but also because the unions themselves should be seen to be totally independent from the council.

This would allow them to hold the executive to account properly and avoid the perception that Labour councillors and union officials are in each others’ pockets.

Secondly, we would cut further into our corporate communications budget as it is an extravagance to still be spending £1 million a year on this when other core services are being cut. Again we would expect to reduce this further in future years.

Thirdly, we would look to reduce the money spent on subscriptions and on junior cabinet posts, which again are a luxury given the current budget reductions.

We have looked into the reserves and concluded that they are too high compared with the overall budget and in particular in areas where action should already have been taken. For example on 2.3 million pound equal pay reserve. This process should have been completed some time ago and maintaining a large balance here means either that Labour has failed to address the issue and needs to act on this now, or that it is storing up money for something else and trying to hide it.

As we know, most of the cuts have been front-loaded, so in order to realise the necessary savings the majority of restructuring and redundancies have gone through the system already. So the restructuring reserve of 5.2 million and the redundancy reserve of 4.3 million are too high and should be reduced.

Then we come to the Insurance reserve, which last year was 900,000 pounds and is now mysteriously 2.1 million pounds. Is someone in the Council worried about a spate of council induced misdemeanors sweeping the Borough or are they storing money away for something else?

Given the cuts to the budget overall, we should also be able to cut our working balance accordingly. So we have taken 1 million pounds for investment in businesses and jobs for the Borough.

Overall our proposals would be prudent, using only 15% of our reserves this year for investment, leaving a significant financial buffer for the future but at the same time investing in the things that matter most to our residents now.

In a year when thousands of people will be coming to this Borough for the Olympics we should be making the most of our high profile and showing our best face to employers and business.

We are also prioritising services for our Borough’s most vulnerable residents:

  • In Children’s Services we would invest a million pounds. As councillors will know, in the latest Ofsted report, the council’s services for looked after children were one of only 2 authorities in the country to be described as poor. The lowest rating possible for any council service. But despite this, Labours planned cuts are still going ahead.

  • Our money would also provide funds for additional respite care services and programmes to deal with sexual health and teenage pregnancy, the latter being one of the highest in the country.

 

As a Liberal Democrat I don’t believe we should accept these failures in Children’s Services. As a corporate parent I don’t believe we should be content with working towards a service that is only adequate, and as a father and grandfather, I think that the Labour administration’s failure to provide for our looked after children is disgraceful and someone should be held accountable.

Our targeted investment would send a signal that we are not going to put up with a poor service and will not be content with aiming for an adequate service. It would show that we are ambitious for our young people, ambitious for our services and would set us on course to provide an outstanding service sooner rather than later.

We have also included money for both Adult and Children’s services to deal with the transitional arrangements when a looked after child reaches the age of 18 but is still dependent on council services. This was thoroughly investigated by a scrutiny panel last year. The report was highly acclaimed by officers and cabinet members – and then ignored.

We have found £600,000 to invest in Adult Services to give a boost to respite care, carers grants and mental health grants, which have been hard hit in recent years.

These should be important areas and red lines for those of us who are in politics to defend the most vulnerable. I’m surprised that the Labour party haven’t gone further in these areas and it’s again fallen to Liberal Democrats to stand up for those in the Borough with the weakest voice but the strongest need.

Labour have come up with a few good ideas like sprucing up Leyton High Road and the Big Six events but where is their ambition? Where are the ideas? Where is the investment in our Borough’s future?

It is one of the great scandals in our country that one in five young people between the ages of 16-24 is currently out of work, some 250,000 of those for over a year. As former Labour Minister, David Miliband, said recently this is not a problem that has come about overnight it has been increasing steadily for over 10 years. A recent report by ACEVO, a third-sector group, puts the potential cost to the taxpayer at tens of billions of pounds over the next decade if this isn’t tackled.

Here in Waltham Forest, we have been identified as a ‘youth unemployment hotspot’, with 1 out of every 8 young people on jobseekers allowance – twice the national average! – this isn’t good enough.

This isn’t just a problem now in these stringent times, the previous Labour government and now this Labour council have failed to provide our residents with the skills and experience needed for more than a decade – the Olympic organisers have said as much. They wanted to hire more young people from Waltham Forest but they say they couldn’t because the young people did not have basic literacy, numeracy and trade skills.

The UK Government has already taken welcome steps to deal with this, through its huge investment in the Deputy Prime Minister’s ‘Youth Contract’ and the apprenticeship programme. As a result, the number of apprentices here in the borough has almost tripled since 2009 to over 1,500. The scandal is that our Council has managed to take on only 9 apprentices.

But we as a council could and should be doing more to help. With this in mind, we have set aside £2,000,000 for apprenticeships with local businesses to train our young people and prepare them for the world of work. This money would not only give up to 400 young men and women the chance to improve their skills base but it would also benefit the local economy and businesses.

But what about the thousands of other resident who are still struggling to find work? What about those who have recently lost their job? What about the long-term unemployed or older people who are now finding their savings don’t cover everything and need extra income?

We propose increasing the councils meagre £120,000 investment for getting people back to work by putting an extra £1,000,000 of the Council’s working balance into helping these people find meaningful employment. Why should we as a Council keep this money back when it could be put to good use and spent assisting the people we represent?

There are already organisations out there doing this work but they need financial support and local leadership to deliver. With high unemployment levels in this Borough investing now has to be a priority.

We must also consider the businesses where people will find work. We all know how tough the current economic climate is for business, especially Small and Medium Enterprises, both here in Waltham Forest and across the country, with a lack of confidence, rising prices and squeezed margins pushing them into making redundancies and even facing bankruptcy. These enterprises are vital as they not only serve our local community but are more likely to hire people from the borough, spend their money locally and encourage social cohesion. That is why in our budget we have earmarked a total of £500,000 for business support and mentoring, to assist local business and ensure that they are shoring up their balance sheets, creating not cutting jobs, and generating wealth here in Waltham Forest.

We don’t need the government to step in, we can do it ourselves. Working with social enterprises like Biz Fizz, Waltham Forest could be investing in programmes that deliver increased business start-up and survival, job creation and improved incomes for local entrepreneurs and their employees.

We already run a graduate scheme here at the council. But with graduates finding it harder and harder to get work, why not expand it? Yes we’re having to cut jobs elsewhere but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be investing in tomorrow’s talent. The Local Government Association run a scheme with some impressive statistics, which offers in-built support for both graduates and managers.

As I’ve said already, our Borough has a problem with youth unemployment and we should be using a multi-pronged approach to tackle it now. Just because times are hard it doesn’t mean we should be ducking these issues, in fact just the opposite, we should be tackling them head on and investing now whilst we can and building on the good work the government is already doing.

This administration could’ve taken just a small fraction of their reserves and paid for up to 400 extra apprenticeships for young people.

They could be investing in business support and mentoring.

And they could be protecting the most vulnerable by investing in our struggling Children’s Services. But they haven’t!

With Liberal Democrats in administration, this Borough went from being a failing authority to a four star authority and one of the most improved boroughs in the country. Two years on with no Liberal Democrats to provide the ideas, drive and dedication, Labour have got lazy and failed our looked after children, failed our local businesses by not paying them on time, despite promising to do so, failed in their diligence by approving the wrong fees and charges and failed our staff by paying 100 of them below the London Living Wage and tonight they have failed to deliver a budget that invests in our residents future.

Our budget is ambitious for our residents, ambitious for our businesses and ambitious for Waltham Forest,

And to that end Mr Mayor I ask the council to support our amendment.

Ive Farm Playing Field

Ive Farm Sports Ground - left derelict by the Council

The Council is negotiating turning Ive Farm Playing Field, which they have left derelict, into a campsite for the Olympics.

Is the Council keeping local residents in the dark about this, hoping that they can sneak it through without proper consultation?

Oliver Close, Villiers Close and Ive Farm Close residents whose homes back onto the site will certainly have objections particularly if, like the site in Walthamstow, it has live entertainment and bars serving alcohol.

The Liberal Democrat Group Leader and Leyton Ward Councillor Bob Sullivan says:

“There must be proper consultation with local residents, If the Council forces this through all proceeds should go towards bringing the playing field back into use.”

Church Lane Car Park – UNDERUSED?

 The report into Parking Provision across the Borough indicated that the Church Lane Car Park(in the shopping centre – next to Leytonstone Tube Station) was underused, and recommended that measures be taken to improve occupancy. It seemed strange, at the time, that this report should also include the provision of a multi-use games area (MUGA). Surely not a practical way of improving use by drivers!

FOCUS Team campaigner Mahmood Faiz believes that ideally a town centre car park should not necessarily be full every day, as it is a facility to encourage motorists to patronise the smaller local shops that do not have off-street parking of their own.

The photograph was taken on a normal weekday morning, and shows just two disabled bays vacant – hardly underused!

LABOUR COUNCIL INCOMPETENCE!

Serious questions must again be asked regarding the competence of the Labour-run Council after it emerged that, at a recent Cabinet meeting, leading Councillors approved the 2012-13 Budget Review of ‘Fees and Charges’ without realising it was in places identical to that of the previous fiscal year. The mistake was only identified and rectified when pointed out by shocked Liberal Democrat councillors several days after the meeting had taken place.

It has taken months for the real figures to be released to the Liberal Democrats and now will not be approved by the Council until March, 5 months late.

This follows on from reports earlier this month, raised by Lib Dem Group Leader Councillor Bob Sullivan, that the Labour administration had failed to honour their pledge to ensure local businesses were receiving payment within 10 days: money that could make the difference between a company staying afloat or going under in these difficult economic times.

Commenting, Councillor Sullivan said:

“I am appalled that something like this has been approved by the Labour Cabinet without even the slightest glance at the figures.

“If Liberal Democrats hadn’t noticed this and chased it up with officers, residents in Leyton and elsewhere would have been faced with confusion over services, or even worse another large hike in fees.

“Labour councillors from top to bottom aren’t putting in the hours and doing due diligence in important areas. It’s now only a matter of weeks until we set the council’s budget for next year and Labour need to end this appalling complacency before then. The residents of Waltham Forest should not have to suffer the consequences of Labour’s incompetence.”

COUNCILLOR OUTRAGED AT NEW PARKING CHARGES FOR LOCAL RESIDENTS

 Councillor Mahmood Hussain outraged at parking fees  

New parking charges have been introduced at Waltham Forest Town Hall for local residents after 6pm.

 Until recently it was free to park for residents who wanted to attend meetings or events at the Town Hall in the evenings and experience local democracy in action.

 But new charges will affect community groups, as well as charities and local residents, who often attend council meetings in the evenings to input into consultations or be updated on the council’s work.

 Lib Dem Councillor Mahmood Hussain said:

 “As a local Liberal Democrat I believe that Labour have once again got their priorities wrong and are penalising local residents before finding savings elsewhere.

 “The Labour administration could reverse these charges for less than half the cost of their subsidies to the trade unions.

 “This makes our council meetings less transparent, less accessible and more expensive for local residents. Labour should think again.”